Skip to main content

Reactions to the Drama Desk Nominations

I think you all need to calm down about the Drama Desk nominations.

First of all, I think they're mostly fair (other than a few glaring omissions) and they represent the kind of season 2017-2018 has been; overall it was a weak one but the strongest work has been done off-Broadway. People overreact because they're so Broadway-oriented, and need to realize that the nominating committee sees about 280 shows a season, performed all over the city. Theater does not only exist between 41st and 54th streets in midtown Manhattan.

Here are some reactions I had to the nominations:
  • The Outstanding Play category is amazing, and good for the committee for only nominating off-Broadway work but I would've nominated Harry Potter and the Cursed Child over Miles for Mary or Admissions. But finally some love for Mary Jane.
  • Outstanding Musical is kind of ridiculous, and I suspect the snobbery around Spongebob Squarepants will make it an easy victory for Mean Girls, which is the weaker of the two shows.
  • I am not sure how I feel about James McArdle being considered lead but I am glad he was nominated. You can argue Louis is a lead in Angels in America, it's just historically he's never been. I think it's McArdle's tremendous performance that makes Louis seem bigger than ever before. That being said, Michael Urie should be in there over Andrew Garfield (I know, I'm alone there) and Paul Sparks. (Actually, the lack of Torch Song love is baffling. Hindle Wakes, really?)
  • The Outstanding Actress in a Play category is amazing, and yet, the weakest performance there will win.
  • So glad someone finally nominated Jelani Alladin! 
  • I can't believe LaChanze and Jessie Mueller both got in over Lauren Ambrose. One is doing glorified karaoke, the other barely registered.
  • Not nominating Denise Gough in Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play is just awful, there's no excuse for it but I'd like to see Jamie Brewer win this one. 
  • My girl Ashley Park got not one but TWO nominations.
  • I didn't love the show but I'm happy Damon Daunno got nominated. Ditto on Tony Yazbeck.
  • Jack O'Brien, really? Really?
  • I am so so so so happy they're honoring Sean Carvajal and Edi Gathegi with a special award. They did extraordinary work in extraordinary circumstances.
  • Juan Castano, huh? Look, I don't want to say this is an embarrassing pick (considering Brandon Gill did much much much better work in numerous shows this year, in both a play and musical) but this is an embarrassing pick. He barely registered in a show nobody liked or remembered (A Parallelogram), Oedipus el Rey was one of the worst things of the season, and who the hell cares about Transfers? New York theater works this way: shows have short runs, so it's possible for you to be cast in a few things a season. That doesn't mean you deserve an award.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Apologia by Alexi Kaye Campbell at the Roundabout Theatre Company

During the writing workshops I took as a student, writers were often told, "you have all of this information in your head but none of it is on the page. We don't know what you know." Someone should've said that to Alexi Kaye Campbell while writing his play Apologia . Apologia takes place in the English countryside house of expat Kristin Miller, who was some sort of political activist (just in title, we never really know what she does per say, but Vietnam is mentioned) and some sort of super famous art historian (I know what you're thinking: those exist?) who has written a memoir that excludes all mention of the sons she basically abandoned when they were children. Oh, yes, and it's her birthday, which is just an excuse for her family to gather at that very moment. Yes, this is a classic version of what I like to call a "family gathers, secrets revealed" play. So Kristin's son, the one who has his shit together, Peter, arrives with his Ameri...
Post a Comment
Read more

Yerma by Simon Stone at the Park Avenue Armory

Simon Stone's new adaptation of Lorca's Yerma now playing at the Park Avenue Armory is one of the most interesting productions I've ever seen. Stone, who also directs, has created a unique vision and staging, and gets terrific performances by his cast (especially Billie Piper). Unfortunately his own adaptation lets the production down. Yerma has a simple plot: a woman wants to have a child, and the obsession over conceiving one completely takes over her life and ruins it. The Lorca original makes this a community and social issue; it is the woman's duty to provide her husband with an heir, and if she cannot, she will be ostracized by society. Stone's version has set it in the twenty-first century, a time during which is it not out of the ordinary for women to remain childless. Of course, some stigma still exists around women not becoming mothers (whether by choice or otherwise), no matter how much we tell ourselves that women have the choice to do whatever they wa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fireflies by Donja R. Love at the Atlantic Theater Company

Okay, look, I get it, two-handers are tough. You have two characters with which to tell your story, and you have to somehow tell this story with as little exposition as possible. You have to show, not tell. Are you listening, Donja Love? Love's current play, Fireflies , tells the story of a married African American couple in 1963. He's a preacher, traveling the southern part of the country to speak at the funerals of other African Americans who have died due to racial terrorism. (When the play begins, the church bombing that claimed the lives of four little girls in Birmingham has just occurs.) She's a doting and devoted housewife who goes so far as to write her husband's speeches and sermons for him. But what her husband, Charles, doesn't know is that she secretly smokes, she wants to abort the baby she's carrying, and she writes explicit letters to a woman she's in love with whom she only met once, briefly. Oh, and did I mention she, Olivia, has PTSD a...
Post a Comment
Read more